This is a book with a surprisingly tight plot. I say surprisingly because there are a lot of plot lines going on here and yet each one is compelling, thoughtful, and well fleshed-out. There's a murdered French trapper, a remote Hudson Bay Company fort, a Norwegian religious community, the twenty year disappearance of two young… Continue reading Book Review: The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney
Nothing so reminds you like the sea that the enemy of life is not death but loneliness. For some reason, the names of the men who vied to reach the South Pole are far better known than those who competed to reach the North. I know about Scott and Amundsen and, of course, Shackleton, but… Continue reading Book Review: The Navigator of New York by Wayne Johnston
I've had this book - a copy that my dad apparently received as a Christmas gift in 1966 - on my shelf for years and never read it or realized that it's a sequel to Lost in the Barrens. Fortunately, you don't need to have read that more famous novel to follow the plot in… Continue reading Book Review: The Curse of the Viking Grave – Farley Mowat
It's hard for me to believe that it's been almost ten years since I last set foot in China. It's been even longer since I've been to Beijing - all the way back to the summer of 2002. Since then, the city has hosted the Olympics and, no doubt, changed drastically. Jan Wong details many… Continue reading Book Review: Beijing Confidential – Jan Wong
Daddy Lenin and Other Stories - Guy Vanderhaeghe (McClelland & Stewart, 2015) I've read one book by Guy Vanderhaeghe (The Englishman's Boy) and, honestly, remember almost nothing about it. This short story collection focuses mostly on men, usually working class. They are well-crafted stories but I did find them repetitive. The Thing Around Your Neck… Continue reading What I Read – February and March 2015
"Why would you read a book like that right now?" was Peter's reaction when I told him I'd just finished reading a novel about birth and midwives in the early 20th century. "I'm not sure," I had to admit. "But it wasn't scary." Partly, I think, I read The Birth House (Vintage Canada, 2007) now… Continue reading Book Review – The Birth House by Ami McKay
Alone in the Classroom (Emblem 2011) begins with a murder and the tension grows from there. In fact, the rate of revelation and tension in this novel is infinitely impressive. Our narrator, Anne, begins with the story of the death of a young girl, occurring when her own mother was young. It is also the… Continue reading Book Review – Alone in the Classroom by Elizabeth Hay
I liked this book more than I expected to. And while that may not sound like the highest praise, it's meant to be a compliment. I knew almost nothing about the title when I picked up a copy at the thrift store, except that I had taken a single semester with John Gould as professor … Continue reading Book Review – Seven Good Reasons Not to be Good by John Gould
It's hard to review a short story collection. You're not discussing and evaluating one plot, one set of characters - you're dealing with many. How do you approach that? Which do you focus on? I recently got to hear Bill Gaston talk about and read from Juliet Was a Surprise (Hamish Hamilton, 2014). He… Continue reading Book Review – Juliet Was a Surprise by Bill Gaston
What strikes you first when you begin to read Mãn (Random House, 2014) is its unique format. Each chapter of this slim novel reads like a long poem. The headings are unobtrusively displayed in English and Vietnamese. Most of the chapters are less than a page. They are vignettes, moments. Given their brevity, they are… Continue reading Book Review – Man by Kim Thuy
Karissa Reads Books 